De Vere – Blue House
After the Battle of Hastings in 1066, Aubrey de Vere – who was related by marriage to William the Conqueror – was put in charge of several towns in eastern England. When his grandson was granted the title of ‘Earls of Oxford’ in 1142, the largest settlement in the river valley to the east of Halstead became knows as ‘The Earls Colne’.
The de Vere family’s coat-of-arms had a five-pointed silver star in the top left-hand quarter.
That star became a familiar badge, or logo, which they placed on any buildings that they owned or sponsored.
On the tower of St Andrew’s church, Earls Colne. The stars are placed under the battlements on all four sides. Another building that was important to the de Vere family was Colne Priory. The Priory church, which was twice as long as the parish church, became the burial place for seventeen generations of the de Vere family.
The best-known member of the de Vere family is Edward, the Seventeenth Earl of Oxford.
He was a prominent figure in his own lifetime, but interest in him grew when a book was published in 1931 claiming that he wrote plays and poems under the pen-name ‘William Shakespeare’.
His lavish life-style at the court of Queen Elizabeth the First caused him to become heavily in debt and hi Earls Colne estate had to be sold to balance the books